The present invention relates to user interactive computer supported display technology and particularly to such user interactive systems and methods which are user friendly, i.e. provide even non-computer-literate users with an interface environment which is easy to use and intuitive.
The 1990""s decade has been marked by a societal technological revolution driven by the convergence of the data processing industry with the consumer electronics industry. This advance has been even further accelerated by the extensive consumer and business involvement in the internet over the past two years. As a result of these changes, it seems as if virtually all aspects of human endeavor in the industrialized world requires human-computer interfaces. As a result of these profound changes, there is a need to make computer directed activities accessible to a substantial portion of the world""s population which, up to a year or two ago, was computer-illiterate, or at best computer indifferent. In order for the vast computer supported market places to continue and be commercially productive, it will be necessary for a large segment of computer indifferent consumers to be involved in computer interfaces.
For at least a decade, it has been recognized that interactive user interfaces to computer displays are made more friendly and easier to use if graphics objects are presented to the user in place of alphanumerics. These graphic objects, such as icons or three-dimensional functional objects, prompt and present to the interactive user, hopefully, intuitive means for initiating and carrying out various computer functions. Such objects are often referred to as tools since they are in effect the tools through which the user may get the computer to perform various functions within the computer""s capability. In the conventional use of such tools, if the user wishes to perform several functions or a combination of functions, particularly with respect to computer graphics or other computer functions, the results of which are interactively presented to the user on the display screen, the user proceeds to select a tool appropriate to a first function and perform the function, followed by selection of a tool appropriate to a second function and performing the function. Then the user selects again an object representative of a tool for performing a third function, carries out the function and so on until the combination of functions is completed. Such processes are obviously relatively slow and may at times become complex and cumbersome because upon the completion of each function, the user must ensure that the selection of an appropriate object tool and the performance of the next function is sufficiently interrelated to the earlier function that the combination of function meshes.
As will be hereinafter described, the present invention provides an advance over conventional processes, by permitting the interactive user to select directly during his interactive session an appropriate object or tool which combines the functions he desires to combine and then performs the combined functions simultaneously. It is recognized that in the past, designers of object interface tools have, at times, combined functions in such tools. However, this was done at the design or program development level, and not at the user interface whereat the user may form his combined tools dynamically during interactive work sessions and carry out the combined functions with a single combination tool or object.
The present invention is directed to interactive computer controlled display systems and particularly to such systems where the user interacts with a plurality of selected functional objects on the display to provide combined graphic results on the display. Means are provided for designating a set of objects respectively providing functions which the user wishes to interactively carry out with respect to the display. The system includes means for combining the designated objects into a single combination object which has an image representative of the combined functions. Then, user interactive means are provided by which the user may activate the combination object to perform the combined functions simultaneously.
It should be understood that the present invention involving the dynamic interactive combination of objects representing functions selected by the user at the display to provide a combination object may be readily implemented in two-dimensional display technologies. However, with the advance of three-dimensional technology over the past few years, more aesthetically interesting user interfaces in accordance with the present invention may be provided by implementing three-dimensional technology wherein three-dimensional objects and three-dimensional combination objects function in a three-dimensional workspace environment.
In addition, implementation of the present invention may be expedited by implementing the display objects using object oriented technologies. In such object oriented display technologies, data representative of each displayed object and the data for performing the respective interactive functions of each object are stored together as a single programming entity. An advantage of object oriented programming is that programs supporting display objects have xe2x80x9cinheritancexe2x80x9d properties. This permits the developer of the programs to be used in implementing the invention to create and provide for subsequent objects related to each other through a class hierarchy. Through this inheritance function, combination objects may be structured so as to inherit properties and functions from the individual objects combined to form the combination object.